D is for Dead

I picked up Deadbolt’s Best of: Haight Street Hippie Massacre in San Fransisco. The blood spatter cover art promises a heavy metal attack but this is a fun rock-a-billy surf band with a great sense of humour. Songs about haunted Tiki heads, Voodoo Truckers & getting wasted delight. An extensive back catalogue that I never followed up on – maybe next time I’m in San Fransisco.

My first Dead Can Dance was a cassette of Aion, which I upgraded to MP3. I loved their renaissance music structure – this is not rock or folk or jazz or even classical but a modern take on Gothic music. Songs sung often in a language of their own that are evocative and gently mournful evocative made them a great shoe-gazer ego favourite.

I have as stand alone’s Into The Labyrinth; Toward the Within. Complex, lulling & emotionally inviting music. Beautifully engineered. Instrumental pieces that haunt and sooth without putting one to sleep. Perfect soundtrack music, in fact since the band has ended members have scored movies.

Lisa Gerrard has gone on to a solo career. I have her Mirror Pool – which is a more moody (if you can imagine) take on her Dead Can Dance aesthetic. Lush strings, wordless voice pulling at the heart. Enya with less Celtic & more ethereality. Good music for sitting by the fire and making out before one pops on Deadbolt for the real heavy action 🙂

Indecision

Ques opened his tool kit. Most of his repair work was done with the same three instruments. The lasweld that sealed most fractures, splits and tears quickly and solidly. The vactrak that cleaned surfaces to allow him a clear view of what needed to be repaired. The st-op that could pry off difficult shields, covers as well as unscrew bolts and suck out nails.

Sticking to these three basic tools avoided indecision. When he looked at the vast array of other tools he had he was glad he remained loyal to these three.

The multiple use tools in his kit amazed and intrigued him. Some were so precise in their use that they were useless for anything else. The tiny hairs of the chipgrap couldn’t be used to pick-up, say, loose fibres or even filings but put them near the spindly chips of a vid and they would clasp them neatly and surely. He had found that the 3c-fine nozzle of the vac could do the same job faster and without the need to disengage any fibres trapped by the chip.

Today though there was one tool he needed. His three frequent instruments didn’t have the capacity to analyze. He wanted to assay the nature of the materials he had found when shaking free the keyboard of a vid.

A dozen small black pellets had fallen out. Black with white marking along the side. Small about the size of little finger nail. They weighted very little and when he shook one there was a rattle from inside.

They were pods of some sort but he didn’t want to risk anything till he had a better idea of what they might be, of what they might contain. He didn’t want them to be blasters. Though he had never seen blasters this small. Even at this size a blaster could destroy his home and most of the block.